Book: The Satyricon, Vol. 2 (The Dinner of Trimalchio)
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Petronius Arbiter >> The Satyricon, Vol. 2 (The Dinner of Trimalchio)
CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SIXTH.
"But," demanded Trimalchio, "what did you have for dinner'?" "I'll tell
you if I can," answered he, "for my memory's so good that I often forget
my own name. Let's see, for the first course, we had a hog, crowned with
a wine cup and garnished with cheese cakes and chicken livers cooked well
done, beets, of course, and whole-wheat bread, which I'd rather have
than white, because it puts strength into you, and when I take a crap
afterwards, I don't have to yell. Following this, came a course of
tarts, served cold, with excellent Spanish wine poured over warm honey;
I ate several of the tarts and got the honey all over myself. Then there
were chick-peas and lupines, all the smooth-shelled nuts you wanted, and
an apple apiece, but I got away with two, and here they are, tied up in
my napkin; for I'll have a row on my hands if I don't bring some kind of
a present home to my favorite slave. Oh yes, my wife has just reminded
me, there was a haunch of bear-meat as a side dish, Scintilla ate some of
it without knowing what it was, and she nearly puked up her guts when she
found out. But as for me, I ate more than a pound of it, for it tasted
exactly like wild boar and, says I, if a bear eats a man, shouldn't that
be all the more reason for a man to eat a bear? The last course was soft
cheese, new wine boiled thick, a snail apiece, a helping of tripe, liver
pate, capped eggs, turnips and mustard. But that's enough. Pickled
olives were handed around in a wooden bowl, and some of the party
greedily snatched three handfuls, we had ham, too, but we sent it back."
CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SEVENTH.
"But why isn't Fortunata at the table, Gaius? Tell me." "What's that,"
Trimalchio replied; "don't you know her better than that? She wouldn't
touch even a drop of water till after the silver was put away and the
leftovers divided among the slaves." "I'm going to beat it if she don't
take her place," Habinnas threatened, and started to get up; and then,
at a signal, the slaves all called out together "Fortunata," four times
or more.
She appeared, girded round with a sash of greenish yellow, below which a
cherry-colored tunic could be seen, and she had on twisted anklets and
sandals worked in gold. Then, wiping her hands upon a handkerchief which
she wore around her neck, she seated herself upon the couch, beside
Scintilla, Habinnas' wife, and clapping her hands and kissing her, "My
dear," she gushed, "is it really you?" Fortunata then removed the
bracelets from her pudgy arms and held them out to the admiring
Scintilla, and by and by she took off her anklets and even her yellow
hair-net, which was twenty-four carats fine, she would have us know!
Trimalchio, who was on the watch, ordered every trinket to be brought to
him. "You see these things, don't you?" he demanded; "they're what
women fetter us with. That's the way us poor suckers are done! These
ought to weigh six pounds and a half. I have an arm-band myself, that
don't weigh a grain under ten pounds; I bought it out of Mercury's
thousandths, too." Finally, for fear he would seem to be lying, he
ordered the scales to be brought in and carried around to prove the
weights. And Scintilla was no better. She took off a small golden
vanity case which she wore around her neck, and which she called her
Lucky Box, and took from it two eardrops, which, in her turn, she handed
to Fortunata to be inspected. "Thanks to the generosity of my husband,"
she smirked, "no woman has better." "What's that?" Habinnas demanded.
"You kept on my trail to buy that glass bean for you; if I had a
daughter, I'll be damned if I wouldn't cut off her little ears. We'd
have everything as cheap as dirt if there were no women, but we have to
piss hot and drink cold, the way things are now." The women, angry
though they were, were laughing together, in the meantime, and exchanging
drunken kisses, the one running on about her diligence as a housekeeper,
and the other about the infidelities and neglect of her husband.
Habinnas got up stealthily, while they were clinging together in this
fashion and, seizing Fortunata by the feet, he tipped her over backwards
upon the couch. "Let go!" she screeched, as her tunic slipped above her
knees; then, after pulling down her clothing, she threw herself into
Scintilla's lap, and hid, with her handkerchief, a face which was none
the more beautiful for its blushes.
CHAPTER THE SIXTY-EIGHTH.
After a short interval, Trimalchio gave orders for the dessert to be
served, whereupon the slaves took away all the tables and brought in
others, and sprinkled the floor with sawdust mixed with saffron and
vermilion, and also with powdered mica, a thing I had never seen done
before. When all this was done Trimalchio remarked, "I could rest
content with this course, for you have your second tables, but, if you've
something especially nice, why bring it on." Meanwhile an Alexandrian
slave boy, who had been serving hot water, commenced to imitate a
nightingale, and when Trimalchio presently called out, "Change your
tune," we had another surprise, for a slave, sitting at Habinnas' feet,
egged on, I have no doubt, by his own master, bawled suddenly in a
singsong voice, "Meanwhile AEneas and all of his fleet held his course on
the billowy deep"; never before had my ears been assailed by a sound so
discordant, for in addition to his barbarous pronunciation, and the
raising and lowering of his voice, he interpolated Atellane verses, and,
for the first time in my life, Virgil grated on my nerves. When he had
to quit, finally, from sheer want of breath, "Did he ever have any
training," Habinnas exclaimed, "no, not he! I educated him by sending
him among the grafters at the fair, so when it comes to taking off a
barker or a mule driver, there's not his equal, and the rogue's clever,
too, he's a shoemaker, or a cook, or a baker a regular jack of all
trades. But he has two faults, and if he didn't have them, he'd be
beyond all price: he snores and he's been circumcised. And that's the
reason he never can keep his mouth shut and always has an eye open. I
paid three hundred dinars for him."
CHAPTER THE SIXTY-NINTH.
"Yes," Scintilla broke in, "and you've not mentioned all of his
accomplishments either; he's a pimp too, and I'm going to see that he's
branded," she snapped. Trimalchio laughed. "There's where the
Cappadocian comes out," he said; "never cheats himself out of anything
and I admire him for it, so help me Hercules, I do. No one can show a
dead man a good time. Don't be jealous, Scintilla; we're next to you
women, too, believe me. As sure as you see me here safe and sound, I
used to play at thrust and parry with Mamma, my mistress, and finally
even my master got suspicious and sent me back to a stewardship; but keep
quiet, tongue, and I'll give you a cake." Taking all this as praise, the
wretched slave pulled a small earthen lamp from a fold in his garment,
and impersonated a trumpeter for half an hour or more, while Habinnas
hummed with him, holding his finger pressed to his lips. Finally, the
slave stepped out into the middle of the floor and waved his pipes in
imitation of a flute-player; then, with a whip and a smock, he enacted
the part of a mule-driver. At last Habinnas called him over and kissed
him and said, as he poured a drink for him, "You get better all the time,
Massa. I'm going to give you a pair of shoes." Had not the dessert been
brought in, we would never have gotten to the end of these stupidities.
Thrushes made of pastry and stuffed with nuts and raisins, quinces with
spines sticking out so that they looked like sea-urchins. All this would
have been endurable enough had it not been for the last dish that was
served; so revolting was this, that we would rather have died of
starvation than to have even touched it. We thought that a fat goose,
flanked with fish and all kinds of birds, had been served, until
Trimalchio spoke up. "Everything you see here, my friends," said he,
"was made from the same stuff." With my usual keen insight, I jumped to
the conclusion that I knew what that stuff was and, turning to Agamemnon,
I said, "I shall be greatly surprised, if all those things are not made
out of excrement, or out of mud, at the very least: I saw a like artifice
practiced at Rome during the Saturnalia."
CHAPTER THE SEVENTIETH.
I had not done speaking, when Trimalchio chimed in, "As I hope to grow
fatter in fortune but not in figure, my cook has made all this out of a
hog! It would be simply impossible to meet up with a more valuable
fellow: he'd make you a fish out of a sow's coynte, if that's what you
wanted, a pigeon out of her lard, a turtle-dove out of her ham, and a hen
out of a knuckle of pork: that's why I named him Daedalus, in a happy
moment. I brought him a present of knives, from Rome, because he's so
smart; they're made of Noric steel, too." He ordered them brought in
immediately, and looked them over, with admiration, even giving us the
chance to try their edges upon our cheeks. Then all of a sudden two
slaves came in, carrying on as if they had been fighting at the fountain,
at least; each one had a water-jar hanging from a yoke around his neck.
Trimalchio arbitrated their difference, but neither would abide by his
decision, and each one smashed the other's jar with a club. Perturbed at
the insolence of these drunken ruffians, we watched both of them
narrowly, while they were fighting, and then, what should come pouring
out of the broken jars but oysters and scallops, which a slave picked up
and passed around in a dish. The resourceful cook would not permit
himself to be outdone by such refinements, but served us with snails on a
silver gridiron, and sang continually in a tremulous and very discordant
voice. I am ashamed to have to relate what followed, for, contrary to
all convention, some long-haired boys brought in unguents in a silver
basin and anointed the feet of the reclining guests; but before doing
this, however, they bound our thighs and ankles with garlands of flowers.
They then perfumed the wine-mixing vessel with the same unguent and
poured some of the melted liquid into the lamps. Fortunata had, by this
time, taken a notion that she wanted to dance, and Scintilla was doing
more hand-clapping than talking, when Trimalchio called out,
"Philargyrus, and you too, Carrio, you can both come to the table;
even if you are green faction fans, and tell your bedfellow, Menophila,
to come too." What would you think happened then? We were nearly
crowded off the couches by the mob of slaves that crowded into the
dining-room and almost filled it full. As a matter of fact, I noticed
that our friend the cook, who had made a goose out of a hog, was placed
next to me, and he stunk from sauces and pickle. Not satisfied with a
place at the table, he immediately staged an impersonation of Ephesus the
tragedian, and then he suddenly offered to bet his master that the greens
would take first place in the next circus games.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-FIRST.
Trimalchio was hugely tickled at this challenge. "Slaves are men, my
friends," he observed, "but that's not all, they sucked the same milk
that we did, even if hard luck has kept them down; and they'll drink the
water of freedom if I live: to make a long story short, I'm freeing all
of them in my will. To Philargyrus, I'm leaving a farm, and his
bedfellow, too. Carrio will get a tenement house and his twentieth,
and a bed and bedclothes to boot. I'm making Fortunata my heir and I
commend her to all my friends. I announce all this in public so that my
household will love me as well now as they will when I'm dead." They all
commenced to pay tribute to the generosity of their master, when he,
putting aside his trifling, ordered a copy of his will brought in, which
same he read aloud from beginning to end, to the groaning accompaniment
of the whole household. Then, looking at Habinnas, "What say you, my
dearest friend," he entreated; "you'll construct my monument in keeping
with the plans I've given you, won't you? I earnestly beg that you carve
a little bitch at the feet of my statue, some wreaths and some jars of
perfume, and all of the fights of Petraites. Then I'll be able to live
even after I'm dead, thanks to your kindness. See to it that it has a
frontage of one hundred feet and a depth of two hundred. I want fruit
trees of every kind planted around my ashes; and plenty of vines, too,
for it's all wrong for a man to deck out his house when he's alive, and
then have no pains taken with the one he must stay in for a longer time,
and that's the reason I particularly desire that this notice be added:
--THIS MONUMENT DOES NOT--
--DESCEND TO AN HEIR--
"In any case, I'll see to it through a clause in my will, that I'm not
insulted when I'm dead. And for fear the rabble comes running up into my
monument, to crap, I'll appoint one of my freedmen custodian of my tomb.
I want you to carve ships under full sail on my monument, and me, in my
robes of office, sitting on my tribunal, five gold rings on my fingers,
pouring out coin from a sack for the people, for I gave a dinner and two
dinars for each guest, as you know. Show a banquet-hall, too, if you
can, and the people in it having a good time. On my right, you can place
a statue of Fortunata holding a dove and leading a little bitch on a
leash, and my favorite boy, and large jars sealed with gypsum, so the
wine won't run out; show one broken and a boy crying over it. Put a
sun-dial in the middle, so that whoever looks to see what time it is must
read my name whether he wants to or not. As for the inscription, think
this over carefully, and see if you think it's appropriate:
HERE RESTS G POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO
FREEDMAN OF MAECENAS DECREED
AUGUSTAL, SEVIR IN HIS ABSENCE
HE COULD HAVE BEEN A MEMBER OF
EVERY DECURIA OF ROME BUT WOULD
NOT CONSCIENTIOUS BRAVE LOYAL
HE GREW RICH FROM LITTLE AND LEFT
THIRTY MILLION SESTERCES BEHIND
HE NEVER HEARD A PHILOSOPHER
FAREWELL TRIMALCHIO
FAREWELL PASSERBY"
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SECOND.
When he had repeated these words, Trimalchio began to weep copiously,
Fortunata was crying already, and so was Habinnas, and at last, the whole
household filled the dining-room with their lamentations, just as if they
were taking part in a funeral. Even I was beginning to sniffle, when
Trimalchio said, "Let's live while we can, since we know we've all got to
die. I'd rather see you all happy, anyhow, so let's take a plunge in the
bath. You'll never regret it. I'll bet my life on that, it's as hot as
a furnace!" "Fine business," seconded Habinnas, "there's nothing suits
me better than making two days out of one," and he got up in his bare
feet to follow Trimalchio, who was clapping his hands. I looked at
Ascyltos. "What do you think about this?" I asked. "The very sight of a
bath will be the death of me." "Let's fall in with his suggestion," he
replied, "and while they are hunting for the bath we will escape in the
crowd." Giton led us out through the porch, when we had reached this
understanding, and we came to a door, where a dog on a chain startled us
so with his barking that Ascyltos immediately fell into the fish-pond.
As for myself, I was tipsy and had been badly frightened by a dog that
was only a painting, and when I tried to haul the swimmer out, I was
dragged into the pool myself. The porter finally came to our rescue,
quieted the dog by his appearance, and pulled us, shivering, to dry land.
Giton had ransomed himself by a very cunning scheme, for what we had
saved for him, from dinner, he threw to the barking brute, which then
calmed its fury and became engrossed with the food. But when, with
chattering teeth, we besought the porter to let us out at the door, "If
you think you can leave by the same door you came in at," he replied,
"you're mistaken: no guest is ever allowed to go out through the same
door he came in at; some are for entrance, others for exit."
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-THIRD.
What were we miserable wretches to do, shut up in this newfangled
labyrinth. The idea of taking a hot bath had commenced to grow in favor,
so we finally asked the porter to lead us to the place and, throwing off
our clothing, which Giton spread out in the hall to dry, we went in.
It was very small, like a cold water cistern; Trimalchio was standing
upright in it, and one could not escape his disgusting bragging even
here. He declared that there was nothing nicer than bathing without a
mob around, and that a bakery had formerly occupied this very spot.
Tired out at last, he sat down, but when the echoes of the place tempted
him, he lifted his drunken mouth to the ceiling, and commenced murdering
the songs of Menacrates, at least that is what we were told by those who
understood his language. Some of the guests joined hands and ran around
the edge of the pool, making the place ring with their boisterous peals
of laughter; others tried to pick rings up from the floor, with their
hands tied behind them, or else, going down upon their knees, tried to
touch the ends of their toes by bending backwards. We went down into the
pool while the rest were taking part in such amusements. It was being
heated for Trimalchio. When the fumes of the wine had been dissipated,
we were conducted into another dining-room where Fortunata had laid out
her own treasures; I noticed, for instance, that there were little bronze
fishermen upon the lamps, the tables were of solid silver, the cups were
porcelain inlaid with gold; before our eyes wine was being strained
through a straining cloth. "One of my slaves shaves his first beard
today," Trimalchio remarked, at length, "a promising, honest, thrifty
lad; may he have no bad luck, so let's get our skins full and stick
around till morning."
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-FOURTH.
He had not ceased speaking when a cock crowed! Alarmed at this omen,
Trimalchio ordered wine thrown under the table and told them to sprinkle
the lamps with it; and he even went so far as to change his ring from his
left hand to his right. "That trumpeter did not sound off without a
reason," he remarked; "there's either a fire in the neighborhood, or else
someone's going to give up the ghost. I hope it's none of us! Whoever
brings that Jonah in shall have a present." He had no sooner made this
promise, than a cock was brought in from somewhere in the neighborhood
and Trimalchio ordered the cook to prepare it for the pot. That same
versatile genius who had but a short time before made birds and fish out
of a hog, cut it up; it was then consigned to the kettle, and while
Daedalus was taking a long hot drink, Fortunata ground pepper in a
boxwood mill. When these delicacies had been consumed, Trimalchio looked
the slaves over. "You haven't had anything to eat yet, have you?" he
asked. "Get out and let another relay come on duty." Thereupon a second
relay came in. "Farewell, Gaius," cried those going off duty, and "Hail,
Gaius," cried those coming on. Our hilarity was somewhat dampened soon
after, for a boy, who was by no means bad looking, came in among the
fresh slaves. Trimalchio seized him and kissed him lingeringly,
whereupon Fortunata, asserting her rights in the house, began to rail at
Trimalchio, styling him an abomination who set no limits to his lechery,
finally ending by calling him a dog. Trimalchio flew into a rage at her
abuse and threw a wine cup at her head, whereupon she screeched, as if
she had had an eye knocked out and covered her face with her trembling
hands. Scintilla was frightened, too, and shielded the shuddering woman
with her garment. An officious slave presently held a cold water pitcher
to her cheek and Fortunata bent over it, sobbing and moaning. But as for
Trimalchio, "What the hell's next?" he gritted out, "this Syrian
dancing-whore don't remember anything! I took her off the auction block
and made her a woman among her equals, didn't I? And here she puffs
herself up like a frog and pukes in her own nest; she's a blockhead, all
right, not a woman. But that's the way it is, if you're born in an attic
you can't sleep in a palace I'll see that this booted Cassandra's tamed,
so help me my Genius, I will! And I could have married ten million, even
if I did only have two cents: you know I'm not lying! 'Let me give you a
tip,' said Agatho, the perfumer to the lady next door, when he pulled me
aside: 'don't let your line die out!' And here I've stuck the ax into my
own leg because I was a damned fool and didn't want to seem fickle. I'll
see to it that you're more careful how you claw me up, sure as you're
born, I will! That you may realize how seriously I take what you've done
to me--Habinnas, I don't want you to put her statue on my tomb for fear
I'll be nagged even after I'm dead! And furthermore, that she may know I
can repay a bad turn, I won't have her kissing me when I'm laid out!"
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-FIFTH.
When Trimalchio had launched this thunderbolt, Habinnas commenced to
beg him to control his anger. "There's not one of us but goes wrong
sometimes," argued he; "we're not gods, we're men." Scintilla also cried
out through her tears, calling him "Gaius," and entreating him by his
guardian angel to be mollified. Trimalchio could restrain the tears no
longer. "Habinnas," he blubbered, "as you hope to enjoy your money, spit
in my face if I've done anything wrong. I kissed him because he's very
thrifty, not because he's a pretty boy. He can recite his division table
and read a book at sight: he bought himself a Thracian uniform from his
savings from his rations, and a stool and two dippers, with his own
money, too. He's worth my attention, ain't he? But Fortunata won't see
it! Ain't that the truth, you high-stepping hussy'? Let me beg you to
make the best of what you've got, you shekite, and don't make me show my
teeth, my little darling, or you'll find out what my temper's like!
Believe me, when once I've made up my mind, I'm as fixed as a spike in a
beam! But let's think of the living. I hope you'll all make yourselves
at home, gentlemen: I was in your fix myself once; but rose to what I am
now by my own merit. It's the brains that makes the man, all the rest's
bunk. I buy well, I sell well, someone else will tell you a different
story, but as for myself, I'm fairly busting with prosperity. What,
grunting-sow, still bawling? I'll see to it that you've something to
bawl for, but as I started to say, it was my thrift that brought me to
my fortune. I was just as tall as that candlestick when I came over from
Asia; every day I used to measure myself by it, and I would smear my lips
with oil so my beard would sprout all the sooner. I was my master's
'mistress' for fourteen years, for there's nothing wrong in doing what
your master orders, and I satisfied my mistress, too, during that time,
you know what I mean, but I'll say no more, for I'm not one of your
braggarts!"
CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SIXTH.
"At last it came about by the will of the gods that I was master in the
house, and I had the real master under my thumb then. What is there
left to tell? I was made co-heir with Caesar and came into a Senator's
fortune. But nobody's ever satisfied with what he's got, so I embarked
in business. I won't keep you long in suspense; I built five ships and
loaded them with wine--worth its weight in gold, it was then--and sent
them to Rome. You'd think I'd ordered it so, for every last one of them
foundered; it's a fact, no fairy tale about it, and Neptune swallowed
thirty million sesterces in one day! You don't think I lost my pep, do
you? By Hercules, no! That was only an appetizer for me, just as if
nothing at all had happened. I built other and bigger ships, better
found, too, so no one could say I wasn't game. A big ship's a big
venture, you know. I loaded them up with wine again, bacon, beans,
Capuan perfumes, and slaves: Fortunata did the right thing in this
affair, too, for she sold every piece of jewelry and all her clothes into
the bargain, and put a hundred gold pieces in my hand. They were the
nest-egg of my fortune. A thing's soon done when the gods will it;
I cleared ten million sesterces by that voyage, all velvet, and bought
in all the estates that had belonged to my patron, right away. I built
myself a house and bought cattle to resell, and whatever I touched grew
just like a honeycomb. I chucked the game when I got to have an income
greater than all the revenues of my own country, retired from business,
and commenced to back freedmen. I never liked business anyhow, as far as
that goes, and was just about ready to quit when an astrologer, a Greek
fellow he was, and his name was Serapa, happened to light in our colony,
and he slipped me some information and advised me to quit. He was hep to
all the secrets of the gods: told me things about myself that I'd
forgotten, and explained everything to me from needle and thread up; knew
me inside out, he did, and only stopped short of telling me what I'd had
for dinner the day before. You'd have thought he'd lived with me
always!"